Learn Italian: L'aeroporto è vuoto oggi. - The airport is empty today.

Because aeroporto starts with a vowel! For masculine singular nouns, instead of using the standard word for "the" (il), Italian uses l' before a vowel. This makes the words flow together easily.

How do you pronounce l'aeroporto? Do you pause at the apostrophe?

No pause at all! You pronounce it smoothly as if it were a single word. The apostrophe just shows that a letter was dropped to connect the l directly to the first vowel of aeroporto.

Why does vuoto end with an -o?

Vuoto means "empty", and in Italian, adjectives change their endings to match the noun they describe. Because aeroporto is a masculine, singular noun, vuoto gets the masculine, singular ending -o.

Why does the word è have an accent mark?

The accent mark tells you this is the verb "is". If you write it without the accent (e), it means the word "and". The accent is very important to show exactly which word you mean!